"The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."
- Winston Churchill
In her book "Measure What Matters" Katie Paine focuses on all aspects of social media measurement. In the third chapter of the book, Paine provides seven steps to the perfects measurement program and how to prove and use your results.
Jason McDonald, in
his book, "Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016"includes a section where he focuses on
Twitter and how it is utilized as a professional platform. He goes over the ins
and outs of the platforms including the importance of understanding the @ sign
or "Handle."
McDonald emphasizes
that the @ sign specifies a Twitter account. The @ sign, often referred to as
users "handle" does two things when incorporated into a tweet:
- It becomes clickable. Any user who views
the tweet can click on the @handle and see the account that is associated with
the handle.
- It is present in the news feed and sends
an alert to the user that has been mentioned using the @handle. This is called
a mention and essentially means that someone has tagged you (your twitter
account) in a tweet.
Along with mentions,
McDonald makes a point to emphasize the importance of a retweet. Like a
mention, a retweet allows a tweet to be linked to a user's account. McDonald
would use the example; if Ellen DeGeneres recapped your joke on her TV show.
That "retweet" of your joke would urge her followers to explore your
profile, increasing your followers.
McDonald says that
as Twitter users and professionals, we do not have to be famous to converse
with influential people in our line of work. He recommends that professional
and personal users of Twitter take advantage of the @ sign or handles to engage
with these important people. Just like in the Ellen DeGeneres example, if
someone important retweets your tweet, you are more likely to see the benefits
of that mention.
To help you gain a
better understanding of handles and the @ sign, I have embedded a YouTube video
of Jason McDonald talking on the subject. Please take a moment to check it out!
The Social Media Marketing Workbook cover art from the 2016 edition. This is the version of the book that we will be using throughout our time in the course. (Photo/Amazon)
In Social Media Principles we are starting a new book, "Social Media Marketing Workbook" by Jason McDonald. This book is the second of three that we will be reading during the duration of the course.
When on social media, there are many different types of users. Some people use social media to brighten the days of others or only to share good content. However, there are other who use the platforms to spam and share bad content.
We label these users, Social Media Jerks.
According to Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, in their book, "The Art of SocialMedia," two main actions are related to being a Social Media Jerk: #1 users who harshly criticize other user's content. #2 users who self-promote in a rude way.
In their book,
"The Art of Social Media," Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick focus a lot of energy on
promoting your brand as a company with the help of social media. They also
touch on some important skills for promoting an event that your company or
organization is putting on.
Guy and Peg tell us
that in order to be successful when hosting an event, it is necessary to have
an effective hashtag.
The hashtag should
be short, simple, and should be directly related to the event that it is
describing. A hashtag such as #ONUPartnersConference2017 is far too long and
too specific. Instead, something like #ONUPartners is
generic so it will be used for a longer time.
That example came
straight from last years Ohio Northern University'sPublic Relations Student Society of America
Partners Conference. As I was in attendance, and a participant in using the
hashtag, I can say that using the generic short hashtag was effective.
Being organized, a
concept that some people don’t seem to understand all of the time. I can not
count the times I have been looking at blogs or post on lesser known media
outlets where the post completely lacks organization. Sometimes down right
messy.
Kawasaki's key to
organization is simple, he says that all you need to do to clean your post up
is to shorten the selection using bullet points. Longer posts are less likely
to be read due to a readers tendency to skip over vast quantities of text.
Kawasaki and
Fitzpatrick are right. Reading large amounts of text in a post on a blog or
online news source can turn off a reader. I much rather read something short
and to the point. Bullet points are equally as strong in posts because it is
easy to follow and looks clean.
Kawasaki says,
"If I want to read a novel, I'll buy an e-book." I think everyone can
agree with this statement. If we are going to invest in a long work of
literature we rather it not be our daily news or post about how to gain muscle
in just two short weeks.
